It’s Silly Season in Northeast Ohio

By Jim Foose

On Tuesday evening, Sandusky Speedway owner Kevin Jaycox dropped a bombshell, he is putting the 75 year old facility up for sale and looking to retire.  Jaycox stated that he would complete the season regardless of any sale and that if the track doesn’t sell he would run it once again in 2026. Potential buyers would be more interested in the property than the race track.  

Losing a race track to development is something that nobody wants to see happen, whether that development is a residential subdivision, industrial park or commercial in nature any development would kill the half mile race track, which is located near industrial giant ThorWorks Industries, owner of ThorSport Racing and close enough to Cedar Point to reap the benefits of the thousands of visitors coming through Sandusky each day during the summer months.

While things have seemed quiet on the outside, Lorain Raceway Park has operated this season under a cloud of questions.  Over the offseason Randy Maggio, Jr. issued a statement that 2025 was a “make or break year” for the ⅜ mile located in South Amherst.  Crowds have been lean, car counts have fallen off slightly from 2024 and the question remains of what will happen to the track if the Maggio family decides to cut their losses.  Unlike Sandusky, Lorain Raceway Park doesn’t have as many development opportunities. There is no industrial operation literally next door and there isn’t a major amusement park nearby.  Nonetheless, the question remains of what the future will hold.

Rumors of other tracks changing hands seem to pop up daily, they start from disgruntled racers venting to one another and spread like wildfire as soon as the word gets around.  If you heard your local track was closing or for sale chances are it’s strictly a rumor with no real truth behind it.  

Amid other things in motion, several cars are already displaying For Sale signs while driver lineups for each class seems to be constantly changing.  Several drivers took the 2025 season off with plans to return in 2026, others are changing classes for next season.  Among them, Will Yuravak, the 2024 Lorain Grand National Champion at Lorain Raceway Park, is making the jump to the Great Lakes Truck Tour, a series that appears to be on the rise for 2026.  

For the Great Lakes Trucks Tour, the Maggio family officially took control of the former CRS Truck Series in mid April, just a month before the season opening race.  With four races in, including trips to Lake Erie Speedway and Midvale Speedway, the tour has put on a solid racing program, albeit with around 10 trucks at each race.  With a handful of trucks, including Yuravak’s, under construction the tour looks to grow to 15 or more trucks at each event next year. 

The Ohio Wheelman Series, the traveling stock car tour in Ohio has seen growth potential for next season.  The Wil Wiggins led series will have some unknowns with the schedule for 2026 as the uncertainty around Sandusky Speedway will leave a dent in the schedule that could be filled by dates in Michigan, Indiana or Pennsylvania.  

The asphalt plans at Mansfield remain undetermined, the expectation is that Stock Cars and Mini Stocks could compete on the flat inner track, estimated to be approximately ¼ mile.  With no banking and tight corners, the track could suffer from one groove racing add in the asphalt, which is already 23 years old and hasn’t been maintained much during that time, including the past three years of drainage water and mud collecting on the turns 3 & 4 end of it, it will be a tough sell to bring any kind of racing in until some testing is completed.  That’s not to say that new owner Matt Tifft won’t invest in it but his bread and butter will be the 4/10 mile dirt track, drifting events and other non-racing events at the facility, stock car racing on the quarter mile will likely rank low on his list of priorities in his first season of racing.